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so without the sanction of that very rule which he himself had framed for ascertaining it!

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We have mentioned already that, at Gen. ii. 25., he reads. prudent,' instead of naked,' deriving it from a root which bears the sense of guile, craft, &c. Now at ch. iii. 7., occurs the cognate word Dy in the plural, which he, consistently with his former translation, renders 'subtle,' instead of the received sense 'naked.' But the same word recurs at v. 10. and 11.; and how does he there translate it? Will it be believed that he renders it' imprudent,' diametrically opposite to his sense of 'prudent' at ch. ii. 25.! His version of v. 10. is, I feared because I was imprudent' (D); of v. 11., Who told thee that thou wast imprudent' (D)? Observe how this is brought about: the word (he says) has various significations, all partaking of the meaning of its root, to be subtle, crafty, guileful; in a good sense, wise, prudent; thus, in a perverted sense, subtle or crafty in wickedness; and thus, imprudent, which is its true meaning. After such a specimen, we conceive that Mr. Bellamy can find no difficulty in proving the same word to mean black and white. But what, we ask, as before, can be certain in language, if such arbitrary meanings are to be assigned to words, contrary to every authority and to their established uses?

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At Gen. iii. 2., he renders some fruit of the tree.' And, in his note on the passage, he says, in opposition to the received translation of the fruit,' that prefixed to fruit cannot be rendered by of. Whatever may be thought of the value of this edict, let us observe in what degree he acts consistently with it. Only four verses after, the very same word " occurs again; and how does he translate it? not 'some fruit,' which he declared to be the right translation at v. 2.; but, agreeably to the received version, of the fruit,' the very rendering which he before pronounced inadmissible!

עיני

Gen. iii. 7. His ingenious translation of this verse would furnish ample matter for observation. We shall confine ourselves to the first clause, Nevertheless the eyes of them both had been opened,' instead of the received version and the eyes of them both were opened.' In the first place, why is he not consistent with himself in rendering understandings' as at v. 5.? As the expressions at v. 5. and at v. 7. are precisely similar, the translation which is proper for the one must be proper for the other. 2dly. He assigns no reason whatever for departing from the usual sense of the copulative 1, and rendering it nevertheless.' 3dly, by translating the verb in the pluperfect tense, he makes the whole narrative completely unintelligible. At v. 5. the serpent says to the woman, God knoweth that on the day ye eat of the same, then your understandings shall be opened.' Thus the consequence of their eating of the

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tree of knowledge was to be the opening of their understandings. The woman is induced to eat of the tree, and of course it is to be expected that the consequence mentioned before would immediately take place. But not so according to Mr. Bellamy's improvements: He translates the words which follow, nevertheless, the eyes of them both had been opened.' And he tells us, in his note, that their eyes (meaning their understandings) had been opened, long before, not that this was the effect of eating the forbidden fruit. So consistent would he make the Holy Scriptures!

At ch. iii. 17., Mr. Bellamy translates, Cursed is the ground by thy transgression; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life.' We have no objection to his substitution of the words. by thy transgression,' for those of the received version, for thy sake,' except that here is a needless departure from the original text, a signifying literally, for thy sake,' on thy account.' But we have much to remark on his explanation of this passage in his notes. He first tells us that the ground' here mentioned is the organized ground, Adamı.'

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'The organized ground called Adam was the ground that was cursed, and not the ground, which God had blessed with the principles of generation to produce every thing necessary for the use of His creatures.' Well then, we are to understand that the ground is not cursed, but Adam. Now for the words which follow, In sorrow shalt thou eat of it.' It manifestly refers to the ground,' which, as we have just been told, means Adam, and the sentence is addressed to Adam: therefore the clause runs, ' In sorrow shalt thou (Adam) eat of it (Adam) all the days of thy life.' We must really apologize to our readers for laying such prodigies of absurdity before them but we quote Mr. Bellamy fairly. In his note on the very next verse he says,

"It is highly proper to observe here that a charge has been brought against this part of the sacred history, which is not true; viz. that God cursed Adam. But it is sufficiently evident that no such expression is found, even in the common version.'

What are we now to think? Who in his senses ever understood the meaning of the passage to be that God cursed Adam, before Mr. Bellamy broached this opinion? And yet, in the very next note after he had delivered this opinion, he contradicts himself and affirms the direct contrary to what he had before advanced. It surely must be needless to extract any more of this writer's monstrous inconsistencies. We will however subjoin,

1st. An instance of his extreme carelessness, to use the mildest term. At Gen. iii. 23. he translates пns when he had transgressed on the ground,' instead of the usual' to till the ground.'

We

We say nothing of the form which he gives the clause, ' when he had,' and come to his meaning of the word ay. "This word, with this construction, means to transgress. See Deut. xvii. 2. where the same word, both consonants and vowels, is rendered by the word transgressing.' Now it so happens that the word at Deut. xvii. 2. is ay, not y: thus he has confounded two words totally distinct, and in his sagacity given the one as authority for the new sense of the other! And this is the man who, by his superior acquaintance with the original, is to set aside the established ver

sion!

2dly. A proof of his not understanding the distinction between the plainest parts of speech in Hebrew. At Gen. vi. 16.

-rendered in the received ver ופתח התבה בצדה תשים on the words

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sion and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof,' he remarks that our translators have rendered 'wn thereof.' Now it so happens that own is the verb rendered shalt thou set,' and that it is suffixed to 2 which is rendered thereof.' The case is precisely the same as if a person were to find the Latin words et portam arcæ in latere ejus pones,' translated, and the door of the ark thou shalt set in the side thereof;' and then, because pones is the last word in the Latin, and thereof' in the English, were to remark (with due applause of his own sagacity) that pones is translated 'thereof'!

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In the midst of all this blundering, his intolerable arrogance is not the least striking: expressions of this kind continually occurEvery intelligent reader will readily allow that, notwithstanding the concurring testimony of all these authorities, ancient and modern, the translations I have given are perfectly right, and sanctioned by the Hebrew.' (Reply, p. 29.)-Such self-sufficiency, resting on such grounds, we firmly believe to be without a parallel.

We had almost forgotten to add any thing respecting Mr. Bellamy's punctuation.* We content ourselves with repeating his words 'I have paid particular attention to the punctuation.' (Introd. p. xi.) and subjoining one or two further specimens of the fruits of his labours.

Gen. iii. 15. Moreover I will put, enmity, between thee, and the woman; also between thy posterity, and her posterity: he shall bruise thy head; and thou shalt bruise his heel.

Gen. iv. 10. Moreover he said, something thou hast done: the voice of the blood, of thy brother; crieth before me, from the ground.' We here dismiss, for the present, Mr. Bellamy, his New transla

Mr. Bellamy complains (Reply, p. 39.) that we misrepresented his punctuation in our last number. His complaint is perfectly unfounded: our printer put a full period at the end of each quotation that we made, which, we believe, is always done in such cases.

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tion, and his Reply.' Whether we shall return to them again, and how soon, will depend on the occasion which we see for laying before the public, more fully even than we have yet done, proofs of his utter incompetence to the task of a biblical translator. We pledge ourselves, at any time when it may be thought necessary, to produce ten, or twenty times as many instances of blunders and mistranslation equally gross and glaring.

Mr. Bellamy speaks, we observe, (Reply, p. 47.) of 'testimonials of decided approbation' received from many of our learned clergy,' and of 'the warm approbation of the public;' but unfortunately he forgets to mention in what manner, and from what individuals this approbation has been received. He forgets equally to mention, what he knows, perhaps, a little better, how much decided reprobation of his work has been expressed, and from what quarters.As far as relates to ourselves, he may depend on one thing; which is, that, as long as we find him, or any one else, acting on a system which must tend to degrade the Holy Bible in public estimation, so long we shall feel it our duty to use our utmost exertions to maintain inviolate its sacred truths.

ART. XII.-1. Abrégé des Mémoires ou Journal du Marquis de Dangeau, avec des Notes Historiques et Critiques, et un Abrégé de l'Histoire de la Régence. Par Mad. de Genlis. 4 vols. 8vo. Paris. 1817.

2. Essai sur l'Etablissement Monarchique de Louis XIV. précédé de Nouveaux Mémoires de Dangeau, avec des Notes Autographes curieuses et anecdotiques ajoutées à ces Mémoires par un Courtisan de la même Epoque. Par Edouard Pierre Lémontey. Paris. 1818. 8vo. pp. 484.

ΜΙ

EMOIRS may, we think, be called the most instructive of the amusing and the most amusing of the instructive departments of literature: they combine individual characters and feelings with public transactions-dignifying the levity of private anecdotes, and enlivening the gravity of historical events.

The whole of the seventeenth century is rich in memoirs; it was then a kind of fashion to keep a journal, and it was, we think, a happy fashion for posterity--we should else know but little of what passed during that interesting period. We have not received from our immediate ancestors much of this species of information, and we apprehend our posterity will be still less indebted to us. The incentives to memoir-writing are greatly diminished by the number of newspapers which have of late inundated Europe: the regularity with which they relate all public events, and the

minute and often indelicate accuracy with which they record the lighter topics of curiosity, leave too little unsaid to repay the diligence of a private journalist; and the curious, instead of writing the memoirs of their own time, now content themselves with filing and preserving the Morning Post. It is true that these diurnal records are always hasty, often inaccurate; and that they therefore supply very ill, or rather not at all, the place of authentic and wellfounded memoirs; but they nevertheless anticipate so much of what the private collector of anecdotes would have to relate, that he is discouraged from the task altogether. Nor can we believe that the publicity which state-papers now so generally, and sometimes so strangely, receive, tends-as much as would at first sight appearto supersede the assistance of authentic memoirs; because it has a natural tendency to indispose statesmen from placing on record all the real grounds of their proceedings :—they are obliged to consider not so much what is forcible in expression, cogent in argument, or accurate in fact, as what is fit to be published; and accordingly diplomatic papers have been growing, for the last thirty years, drier and drier. We see that the greatest affairs of our own day are transacted in personal conferences; and of the motives of many of the most important events it is to be feared that no recorded explanation will survive: (we hold for nothing the unofficial and intentionally-meagre protocols of conferences.) Nor can we hope that the private papers of ministers of state, occupied as they are with public duties, will furnish many instances of historical memoirs; and, however paradoxical it may seem, we see some reason to apprehend that this writing, printing, and publishing age of ours' will leave behind it as few materials for political history, and fewer for the history of manners than any of its predecessors since the revival of learning.

The Memoirs of the Marquis of Dangeau, which have led us to these observations, are curious, and certainly include a great deal of valuable information; although we are not disposed to rate them so highly in this point of view as either of the editors. Before we begin our examination of them, we shall lay before the reader some account of their author, which Madame de Genlis has done too scantily, and M. Lémontey not at all.

Pierre de Courcillon, Marquis of Dangeau, was born in 1638, and was about a year younger than Louis XIV.; his family was protestant, but he himself early in life became a Roman Catholic: he served, as all French gentlemen then did, in the army, and served with distinction. In 1665 he was made Colonel of the king's own regiment, which, however, he, some years after, resigned, to attach himself to the personal service of his master: he was employed by him in several negociations, one in England for the second marriage of James

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